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City of Alexandria Recognizes Family Day on Monday, September 22Family Day Highlights the Importance of Family Dinners To Help Children Avoid Substance Abuse

On Monday, September 22, take time out of your busy schedule and observe Family Day by having dinner together with your family. Family Day – A Day to Eat With Your ChildrenTM is a national movement to inform parents that parental engagement fostered through frequent family dinners is an effective tool that decreases the likelihood that children will smoke, drink, or use drugs. Daily dinnertime conversations can help parents learn about their children’s lives and the challenges they face each day.

More than a decade of research by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University has consistently found that the more often kids eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink, or use drugs. Listening to your children is a simple way to reduce youth substance abuse and raise a healthy family.

Join parents across the country in logging onto www.CASAFamilyDay.org to take the Family Day STAR Pledge to commit to:
• Spend time with your kids by having dinner together
• Talk to them about their friends, interests and the dangers of drugs and alcohol
• Answer their questions and listen to what they say
• Recognize that YOU have the power to keep your kids substance-free!

Family Day promotion is sponsored by the Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition of Alexandria. The SAPCA is an alliance of parents, youth, schools, city health and recreation agencies, nonprofits, businesses, policymakers and law enforcement working to engage the community in substance abuse prevention activities that result in the reduction of underage substance use.